Arnold June 2012 For-Fee Columns
June 12, 2012
The June 2012 for-fee columns by Stephen E Arnold have been shipped to the commissioning publications. The topics covered this month are:
- For Enterprise Technology Management, “Android and Humpty Dumpty” looks at the enterprise implications of the many versions of Google’s mobile operating system.
- For Information Today, “Is the SharePoint Tsunami Losing Force?” reviews some of the signals which may indicate that Fast Search could be nearing the end of its useful life. In the column are excerpts from an interview I conducted with Comperio US’s president, Bjorn Laukli.
- For KMWorld, “HP and Autonomy: Is Change Coming in Enterprise IDOL?” reviews some of Hewlett Packard’s plan for its $10 billion technology acquisition, Autonomy plc.
- I discuss a domain of content ignored by most enterprise search systems. I profile a vendor tackling this opportunity.
- For Online Magazine, “Has IBM Mapped the Course for Commercializing Open Source Search?” takes a high-level look at how IBM has used open source search to reduce costs and create new high-value commercial software which do not get described with the word “search.”
For copies of these articles, you will need to hound the publisher, not me. I just write ‘em. I don’t archive work for hire. I will gather together some of my older for-fee columns in pre-final mode. We will post these in the near future on the main ArnoldIT.com Web site.
Stephen E Arnold, June 12, 2012
Freebie
TIBCO News: Hadoop Support added to Spotfire Analytics
May 21, 2012
Organizations around the globe are experiencing challenges with managing the explosion of big data and meeting the demands of digital consumers. Tech entities are eagerly stepping up and collaborating to develop solutions for these big data challenges, including innovative alternatives to industry standards, like SharePoint.
TIBCO Software Inc. is a provider of infrastructure software for companies to use on-premise or as part of cloud computing environments. Chris Kanaracus recently discussed some TIBCO news in the ComputerWorld.com post, “Tibco adds Hadoop Support to Spotfire Analytics Tool.” The new release is explained:
Spotfire 4.5 will become generally available this month and features a data service connector to Hadoop, which is known for its ability to handle unstructured data such as weblogs, sensor information and text. The connector will allow users to combine and analyze information from Hadoop clusters along with structured data from business applications such as an SAP or Oracle ERP (enterprise resource planning) system.
But some analysts, such as Boris Evelson of Forrester Research, are less than giddy. Evelson adds, “However, other aspects of the release, such as the management tooling and iPad support, are less than earth-shattering.” According to Evelson, mobility has become a basic requirement of any BI platform.
TIBCO’s new partnerships are another indication that enterprise search is the hot new market for competition and development. While acquisition and development news is exciting, you may want to turn to an established search solution that already understands the value of federated search and mobility. We like the feedback we’ve seen about Fabasoft Mindbreeze. Here you can read about the mobility solutions from Mindbreeze,
Fabasoft Mindbreeze Mobile makes company knowledge available on all mobile devices. You can act freely, independently and yet always securely. Irrespective of what format the data is in. Full functionality: Search results are displayed homogenously to the web client with regards to clear design and intuitive navigation.
And with information pairing of your cloud and on-premise data, users can easily access important business information on the go from their smartphones and tablets. The well-established and cost-effective solution is worth a second look at http://www.mindbreeze.com/.
Philip West, May 21, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
EPiServer Snaps Up Enterprise Search Solution Provider 200OK AB
May 14, 2012
EPiServer is trying to figure out how to make content findable– a long standing problem in content management systems, particularly for SharePoint centric systems. To that end, The Wall Street Journal’s Market Watch reports, “EPiServer Acquires 200OK AB, and Enterprise Search Solution Provider.”
The terms of the deal have not been disclosed. The press release explains:
“200OK AB’s ‘Truffler’ product scales to handle large amounts of information — including user data, social and mobile web content, and product and online transaction data. The solution applies next-generation data management strategies, wherein organizing content and unstructured data are key to streamlined content delivery. With this purchase, EPiServer creates the opportunity for organizations to reduce the boundaries between a website and content housed in other sources by making that data available to the business user or content owner.”
200OK AB is based in Sweden. Truffler technology supports a SaaS solution and promises to hasten time-to-market for new online initiatives. It also pledges speedy deployment and short release cycles for new business solutions.
Also headquartered in Sweden, EPiServer was formed in 1994. The Web content management company emphasizes what they call the four C’s of online engagement: content, community, commerce, and communication. They also host EPiServer World, a developer community with over 15,000 members.
Our view: Why not use the PolySpot system?
Cynthia Murrell, May 14, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
Yammer Embraces Search
May 2, 2012
An enterprise social vendor is jumping into search: BrainyardNews announces, “Yammer Update Emphasizes Enterprise, Cloud Search.” Since search vendors are jumping into almost anything with the merest whiff of money, I guess it makes sense for enterprise social network provider Yammer to pursue search. BrainYard editor David F. Carr writes:
“Yammer is introducing ‘universal search,’ along with an option for project or interest groups within a Yammer enterprise social network to sign up for services without necessarily enlisting the company as a whole. . . . To Yammer, universal search makes it possible to search across connections to both enterprise and cloud-based systems integrated with a Yammer network. For example, a search by customer name might turn up automated updates from Salesforce.com, SAP, and a Microsoft SharePoint site, as well as posts by users about that company.”
Uniquely, Yammer saves space by indexing only the metadata coming into a feed, rather than the underlying data, though full-text indexing may appear in the future. The basic social network service is free, and a la carte pricing for premium options gives customers some flexibility.
The new features are part of the spring update Yammer released this month. Other components include: a new tagging method; a Web part that integrates with MS Office 365; updated mobile apps; and the Yammer Embed feature, now moving up from its beta existence.
Launched in 2008, Yammer pioneered the use of secure, private social networks for the purpose of collaboration. More than 80% of Fortune 500 companies currently use the company’s services.
Cynthia Murrell, May 2, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
Amazon CloudSearch
April 12, 2012
Well, some of the folks working to bolt a search and retrieval system into “big data”, mobile apps, and cloud vendors’ systems are trying to figure out what to do about Jeff Bezos. The head of Amazon has taken time from his space flight activities to disrupt the world of cloud-based search and retrieval.
The announcements were handled in Amazon’s typical mode. Those who were privy to the new service, which is based on A9 with what looks like some open source goodness inside, had to keep quite. Then Amazon published a chunk of Web pages about the service. You can find most of the basics in this CloudSearch documentation collection.
There are two general interest type blog posts. You may want to check out Dr. Werner Vogels’ “Expanding the Cloud—Introducing Amazon CloudSearch” and the AWS Blog story “Amazon CloudSearch—Start Searching in One Hour for Less Than $100 / Month.”
The system is the “old” A9 search service which received some early life support from Udi Manber, now a Googler. But the features and functions referenced in the documentation suggest that additional work has been done to make facets, snippets, highlighting, and graphic features take advantage of some open source goodness. However, Amazon takes some care to make sure that the provider of the open source goodness is tough to grab. The best example of this method is Amazon’s handling of the Android operating system for the Kindle Fire. Beneath the sluggish interface of the Kindle Fire beats the heart of Android 2.x. Even the Amazon app store runs certain apps, not all of them. The approach works and keeps many of Amazon’s secrets from turning up in Gawker or trendy Silicon Valley blogs. Amazon secrecy is not quite Apple grade, but Amazon is familiar with the orchard.
According to Expanding the Cloud – Introducing Amazon CloudSearch:
Developers set up a Search Domain — a set of resources in AWS that will serve as the home for one collection of data. Developers then access their domain through two HTTP-based endpoints: a document upload endpoint and a query endpoint. As developers send documents to the upload endpoint they are quickly incorporated into the searchable index and become searchable.
Developers can upload data either through the AWS console, from the command-line tools, or by sending their own HTTP POST requests to the upload endpoint.
There are three features that make it easy to configure and customize the search results to meet exactly the needs of the application.
Filtering: Conceptually, this is using a match in a document field to restrict the match set. For example, if documents have a “color” field, you can filter the matches for the color “red”.
Ranking: Search has at least two major phases: matching and ranking. The query specifies which documents match, generating a match set. After that, scores are computed (or direct sort criterion is applied) for each of the matching documents to rank them best to worst. Amazon CloudSearch provides the ability to have customized ranking functions to fine tune the search results.
Faceting: Faceting allows you to categorize your search results into refinements on which the user can further search. For example, a user might search for ‘umbrellas’, and facets allow you to group the results by price, such as $0-$10, $10-$20, $20-$40, etc. Amazon CloudSearch also allows for result counts to be included in facets, so that each refinement has a count of the number of documents in that group. The example could then be: $0-$10 (4 items), $10-$20 (123 items), $20-$40 (57 items), etc.
For more information on the different configuration possibilities visit the Amazon CloudSearch detail page.
Automatic Scaling: Amazon CloudSearch is itself built on AWS, which enables it to handle scale.
Okay, automatic. This sounds like the standard line from every cloud vendor with knowledge of sharding, distributed computing, and work allocation. We noted that the system supports Boolean logic and math operations. That’s good news and long overdue from Amazon.
Our take on Amazon CloudSearch is that Amazon has introduced a service which will allow developers to get out of the business of figuring out how to bolt a third party search solution to their Amazon content. For organizations looking for a silver bullet to kill the on premises search systems, Amazon has taken a quick step into the search disco.
Will Amazon’s CloudSearch become a viable alternative for on premises search? Will Amazon’s new service put additional pressure on the big enterprise companies like Hewlett Packard and Oracle. Both of these outfits have spent big money buying ageing findability solutions. What about Microsoft with its ubiquitous search solutions included with SharePoint? What happens to mid tier vendors like Lexmark Isys or start ups like DataStax and its Enterprise 2.0 service?
We don’t know. What we do know is that Amazon, unlike Google and Facebook, has found a way to enter a service space without looking much like a head on competitor to any other company. Google has not moved too far from its on premises Google Search Appliance. Facebook continues to dither when it comes to full-on search. Amazon’s challenge will be getting its costs under control and finding a way to placate the Wall Street MBAs. Search on Amazon is, in our opinion, a service which is in dire need of improvement.
Perhaps the CloudSearch will impact the way Amazon.com’s book search works? I am still struggling to find a way to NOT out books which are not yet available. I find the method of coping with titles on the iPad 3 Kindle reading app almost unusable.
Can Amazon do better? Yes. Will CloudSearch be that important leap forward? I don’t know. But I am watching, and I have a hunch that other search vendors, partners, and integrators are checking out this most recent blast from Bezos Land.
Stephen E Arnold, April 12, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Is Microsoft Weaponizing Open Source Software?
March 29, 2012
I am not an expert on open source. In fact, anything with the word “open” in it makes me nervous. After all, I used to work at Halliburton’s Nuclear Utility Services unit. I prefer the word “closed.”
I read “Microsoft Takes Asp.net MVC into the Open with Community Patches and Bug Fixes.” Quite an interesting write up. The main point is that Microsoft is getting some ideas about open source and how free and open software can be used by a fiercely commercial enterprise. I thought, “Hmmm. I wonder if the founders of open source assumed that an outfit like Microsoft would weaponize the open source approach?”
How infiltration works.
For me, the main point of the write up is that Microsoft is weaponizing free and open source software. Quite a good idea, and it takes the IBM Eclipse and Lucene initiatives in an interesting new direction. Compared to IBM’s approach, Microsoft is moving with the low profile of a Navy Seal unit engaging in a crowded mall. Here’s the passage I noted:
ASP.NET MVC, Microsoft’s Web application framework, has been open sourced since its first version, and was switched to Microsoft’s permissive license in 2009. However, there’s a difference between open development and mere open source (as those following Android’s development will be well aware). Previously, the source was available, but its development was Microsoft’s sole concern; third parties had no ability to suggest changes or contributions of their own, and little ability to comment on the work that Microsoft was doing. Under the new development model, developers will be able to see the product as it’s being created, right down to the level of individual code changes, bug-fixes, and new features. Perhaps most significantly of all, for the first time Microsoft will be accepting patches and contributions from third parties to the product. If you have a fix for a bug or some code for a new feature, you could see it integrated into the mainline ASP.NET MVC tree. The first such update has already been accepted. This patch came from Miguel de Icaza, founder of Mono, the open source implementation of the .NET stack.
As the write up points out, Microsoft still decides what gets integrated and what does not.
On one hand, Microsoft may be realizing that in house teams cannot accomplish certain tasks. Instead of fighting those who are fed up with certain bugs and functions, Microsoft is just letting outsiders remediate the often buggy, bloated, and performance challenged code.
On the other hand, Microsoft may be wrapping itself in the free and open source software flag, getting the names of those who are able to fix up Microsoft’s offerings, and taking steps to make its systems more widely available to those who otherwise would ignore such fine products as SharePoint and Fast Search.
This is indeed an interesting development, but it is one that IBM has pursued for quite a while. Microsoft, like Google, often arrives late at some parties. Microsoft may be arriving with some weaponized open source just to liven up the hoe down. Will Fast Search be pushed into the open source community?
Stephen E Arnold, March 29, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
To Cloud or Not to Cloud, That is the Question
March 12, 2012
Less than a year ago Microsoft launched Office 365, allowing Cloud access to a comprehensive set of software, including SharePoint Online. And while many businesses saw migrating Exchange email services to the Cloud as a no-brainer, the same positive perception has not be given to SharePoint Online. Chris McNulty gets into the details in, “The SharePoint Decision: Do We Choose Cloud or On-Premises?”
When examining the cold hard facts about SharePoint Cloud functionality, McNulty has the following to say:
People would be blown away by the depth of functionality Microsoft made available in the cloud. I mean it – there would be wild celebrations and stampedes in the street! But that’s not the perception of Office 365-based SharePoint. Instead, there’s a lot of needless focus on what’s left out.’ (SharePoint Online does lack a few features relative to on-premises SharePoint.)
While SharePoint Online shows a lot of promise and continued improvement, it is noted that it still lags behind the full functionality of an on-site SharePoint installation. However, some third-party solutions are available that are much more agile, and therefore already display greater Cloud functionality.
Check out Fabasoft Mindbreeze and their enterprise solution, which is fully functional as an on-site installation or on the Cloud.
Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise and the Cloud fit together perfectly. The Cloud makes your business mobile; Mindbreeze finds its way in the Cloud. This intelligent search is available as a Cloud service. This means that, if you so desire, Fabasoft Mindbreeze can run without any installation whatsoever – we operate the search engine for you. All the data that you manage in the Cloud is made searchable by Fabasoft Mindbreeze.
While SharePoint gets better with each new release, third-party solutions have the advantage of being more agile and being updated more frequently. See if Fabasoft Mindbreeze can replace or supplement your current enterprise infrastructure, improving its performance in the Cloud.
Emily Rae Aldridge, March 12, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Social Business: Collaboration Trends for 2012
February 27, 2012
Leigh Jasper’s blog series, Collaboration for Grown-ups, reflects a focus on the benefits of enterprise collaboration across supply chains. Jasper, of the ComputerWorld.com Blog, looks at collaboration challenges with big data and the social and mobile forces arriving to the enterprise search world in the first post, “Collaboration Trends for 2012: Part One.”
And as big data becomes a key basis of competition, it will also necessarily become the foundation for new forms of collaboration. In 2012, I believe that more companies will recognize that along with having to deal with storing and analyzing big data, they will need to adopt collaboration platforms capable of capturing, sharing and analyzing it.
With growing data, it is no wonder SharePoint adoption is growing, as well. Of course, 2012 trends could not be discussed without mentioning social and mobile media in the enterprise. With consumer demand for social networking and personal mobile devices driving trends, enterprises are looking to search and analyze this data, such as the conversation between brands and their customers. But the supply chain is also feeling the impact. Jasper suggests that 2012 will see collaboration in the supply chain go beyond email and file sharing and businesses will look to solutions for capturing the many-to-many flow of content.
Business-to-business collaboration development is inevitable as business gets social. To tap into the new possibilities, consider a third party solution to complete your enterprise search system. We like Fabasoft Mindbreeze.
Managing director Michael Hadrian explains the Mindbreeze solution,
Fabasoft Folio Cloud enables quick, secure and mobile collaboration both internally and between international companies. Business processes with customers and partners cannot be realized any quicker or more cost effectively…This enables worldwide connected collaboration and secure data exchange in protected team rooms.
For a complete search solution with the power of information pairing, check out the full suite of solutions at Fabasoft Mindbreeze.
Philip West, February 27, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Expert System Italy
February 9, 2012
In 1989, Marco Varone, along with Stefano Spaggiari and Paolo Lombardi, founded Expert System Italy. The three wanted to develop semantic software to extract knowledge from text by replicating human processes. Varone is the father of the company’s Cogito technology.
Unlike traditional technologies based on keyword and statistics that can only guess the content of a text, Cogito reads and interprets knowledge trapped in unstructured text, finding hidden relationships, trends, and events. It relies on deep linguistic analysis and semantic disambiguation of text to ensure a complete understanding of a text. The technology can be used on files, e-mails, articles, reports, and Web pages.
After developing Cogito, Expert System partnered with Microsoft and integrated the linguistic and semantic technologies into Microsoft Office. The Cogito Categorizer is also integrated to the SharePartXXL Taxonomy Extension for Microsoft SharePointby the SharePartXXL Cogito Connector. In April 2011, the company was awarded a US patent for the Cogito semantic platform.
Products include Cogito Semantic Search, Cogito semantic Advertiser, and Cogito Answers, and Cogito Intelligence Platform. Expert System positions Cogito Semantic Advertiser as an alternative to Google’s AdSense search keyword ad management tool. The company applies semantic technologies to its contextual ad formula, discerning greater meaning from the text in an article to provide more relevant ads. Cogito Answers can be used to improve customer service, combining semantic analysis of sentiment and customer satisfaction monitoring with advanced natural language customer interaction features.
Profitable from the start and with recent growth at a compound annual growth rate of 50%, Expert System has a client list that encompasses a variety of industries. Customers include Vodafone, Eni Group, Pirelli, Telecom Italia, the Italian Ministry of Defense, RIM and CVS Pharmacy. Competitors are Google, Cisco, Flurry, Nuance Communications, and RAMP. Expert System has a strong following in the mobile search space.
Rita Safranek, February 9, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Spam Attack from Info360 and Real Story
January 30, 2012
I am fascinated with the machinations of conference organizers adapting to the iPad era.
I was invited to Info360? The name did not resonate, so I browsed the spam message, a portion of which is included in this blog post.
So what’s an Info360? On the surface, it seems to be mostly about an azure chip (maybe a very pale azure?) consulting firm and a gaggle of jargon. Here’s an example of what’s on tap in June, which the spam assures me is amazing:
- Big data and analytics
- Cloud infrastructure.
- Content management basics, records management, and Web content management (presumably different from “basic” content management and not a subset of content management)
- Data capture
- Enterprise collaboration
- Mobile business
- SharePoint
- Social business
In short, this is an umbrella conferences covering a multitude of topics. The Info360 program is, I believe, the Association of Image and Information Management’s event.
These “one size fit all” conferences contrast with more focused start up showcase events or focused technical events such as the Lucid Imagination Lucene Revolution program.
More and more umbrella conferences are “pay to play” talks. Programs are often little more than product and marketing pitches.
What should a person do who is seeking information about a specific topic in the laundry list in the spam message sent to me? My suggestion is to look for a specialty conference close to home.
Email marketing, at least for me, spam is a turn off. When the spam uses words like “amazing” and “real”, I tune out. I may be taking steps toward a certain blindness by ignoring spam about conferences, so your mileage may differ. Search is not on the program. That’s probably a plus because search is certainly no buzzword like “big data” or “mobile business”, whatever that means.
Stephen E Arnold, January 30, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
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